History

Kletsk is one of the numerous small regional towns of Belarus. The ancient town on the bank of the Lan is 20 years older than Moscow. The remnants of a swell and a castle hill survive till the present day. The landscape with the former marsh was ideal to protect the town from raids of enemies.

The year of 1127 - the town appears at the place of a feudal castle and becomes the center of the duchy as part of the Turov-Pinsk territory with good trading relations with Kiev and Volyn. At the early 14th century the town makes part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

1442 - the town is owned by Mikhail Mazovetsky, the son of Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund Keistutovich, who after his father’s death had throne claims.

1452 - Grand Duke of Lithuania and Polish king Kazimir assumes possession of Kletsk. Later, the town is presented to Duke Ivan Yaroslavich deposed by Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily II to the Belarusian-Lithuanian state. Ivan Yaroslavich’s son, Fiodor, also rules over the town of Kletsk.

1558 – after King Sigismund I the Old and his wife Bona Sforza, the town passes into the possession of the Radziwills. In the mid 16th century, the town is the centre of protestants supported by Nikolai Radziwill the Black.

1560-62, Kletsk hears sermons of Symon Budny, the outstanding religious disputant, humanist, enlightener and philosopher. It is Kletsk where Symon Budny writes his renowned Catechesis, the first book in Belarusian published in Belarus in 1562.

1579 - Kletsk becomes the capital of Radziwill’s ordynacja – undivided between the heirs but inherited in full by the eldest son (Primogeniture). The ordynacja was confirmed by King Stephen Bathory in 1586. Albrecht Radziwill, the first Kletsk ordynat, lived only 34 years but showed his great worth as a courageous knight and skillful diplomat in the talks between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Principality of Moscow on signing peace between the two states in 1581-82. He received the nickname “Lithuanian Justinian” for his participation in the creation of the Supreme Court of Appeal – the Major Tribunal of Lithuania.

1874 - the Kletsk ordynacja is united with the Nesvizh ordynacja of the Radziwills and exists in such form until 1939 (for 360 years).

Kletsk greatly suffered from the wars of the 17th-18th centuries. The town was burned and pillaged many times. The wars razed to the ground the town’s castle and fortification constructions, which picturesque appearance was imparted to us by the 17th-century engraving of Kletsk made by famous cartographer and engraver Tomasz Makowski. The town’s Renaissance came in the mid 18th century. After the second partition of the Rzecz Pospolita in 1793, Kletsk made part of the Russian Empire and became a place in the Slutsk uyezd of the Minsk Province.

The Kletsk land also witnessed revolution struggle. In summer 1863, Kastus Kalinovski’s rebels clashed with the tsar gendarmes and Cossacks in the village of Zaostrovechye.

The region witnessed fierce revolution fighting in 1905-1917. The Soviet power was installed in mid November 1917. Over the short period of time, 30 schools, village reading rooms and libraries were opened in the region. In the second half of April, 1919, the Poles occupied the town and, in line with the Treaty of Riga of March 18, 1921, the town of Kletsk was incorporated to Poland. On September 17, 1939, Kletsk was liberated by the Red Army.

In January 1940, Kletsk becomes the regional center of the Baranovichi oblast. Regional party and komsomol organizations, the executive committee of the regional council of labour deputies were set up in the town.

The Great Patriotic War interrupted the peaceful life in Kletsk. On June 27, 1941, the Nazis occupied the town and, only on July 2, 1944, the Kletsk region was liberated from the Nazis.

Three mills, an electric power station, a hospital for 70 beds, 62 schools were restored by March 1945. Twelve local companies were established in the town by July 19, 1945. A telephone station, a telegraph and a broadcasting center were restored in Kletsk. The region had 17 kolkhozes and three sovkhozes in early 1951.

In January 1963, the Kletsk region was abolished and incorporated to the Nesvizh region and reinstated in 1966.